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The freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the right to industrial action are all essential elements and can even be considered as founding pillars for any autonomous industrial relations system. Put in relation with the processes of creating social policy in the EU, where the social dialogue has a role granted to it from the EC Treaty, the need for recognition of the freedom of association and the rights to collective bargaining and industrial action is evident. This paper aims to discuss and analyse these rights as fundamental rights within the EU legal order since at the EU level these rights can be questioned as to their legal status, recognition and contents. We will consider the network of national, EU and international regulations that govern these rights as well as how such regulations and other issues of importance for these rights have been treated by the ECJ. Through this analysis we will establish solid arguments in favour of considering these rights as fundamental rights in the EU legal order. The contents of these rights will also be analysed in a similar manner with the aim of arriving at a discussion of how the contents of these rights might affect the potential future development and function of the European social dialogue. The most important conclusion points out the efficient manner in which the ECJ has recognised the right to strike as a fundamental right whilst at the same time diminishing the contents of this right. This in turn means that the asymmetry of power between management and labour is retained in the sense that the development of the European social dialogue will remain at the discretion of the employers. In order to come to terms with this asymmetry of power different solutions are available, such as establishing a duty to negotiate as part of the right to collective bargaining or filling the right to strike with a proper and effective contents. If this is not done the only means for pressuring the employers to negotiate binding agreements will remain the shadow of law, which currently shines of absence from the EU legislative scene.
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